Takara Encore Series - Quality?

Been looking at the Takara Encore series of G1 reissues. Anybody own any of these? Are they diecast? How close is the quality to the original toys? Thanks in advance.

yeah, they have diecast. same amount as the originals.

as for quality, well, encore is a bit different.

there isnt one single encore release that is identical to the original toy. they all have "improvements" made to them, some details that used to be stickers are now painted on, like the stripes on ironhide and ratchet. the eyes on jazz, hoist, and trailbreaker (and the minibot reissue set) are painted blue, megatron's silver plastic now has kind of a brown tint to it, soundwave's plastic is a different shade than the original, and convoy has metallic blue plastic now. omega supreme now has sculpted eyes.

quality control on some of them is something to watch out for too. pretty much all the first run megatrons are broken in the package. there's a tab that is in his chest that is for the bullet launching mechanism, and it's bent. it hampers transformation, and you have to move his chest around oddly when collapsing it for gun mode.

a lot of convoys have really messed up eye paint applications. mine is practically winking at me.

the laserbeak included with soundwave doesnt transform into tape mode too well. parts stick out. not streamlined at all like the original, or earlier reissues.

after wave 1, QC improved a lot.

you're not gonna find anything better for the price though. encores are cheaper than the other reissue lines, they look nice, and the line seems like it's gonna stick around for a while. and it's hard to complain about a line that happily reissues omega supreme, metroplex, and sky lynx.

I've got quite a few of the encore releases and they are good. The die-cast is solid and the colors are vibrant. The over-all impression of this line is very favorable. The boxes look great ,and I get the feeling that they really care about the quality of the figures.
If your looking for g1 re-issues, the encore line is very good. If I didnt already have them, I'd supplement the Hasbro reissues with the encore. (the ones that over-lap)

My Encore Convoy's plastic definitely feels lighter and lower quality than my G1 Ultra Magnus cab. He's the only Encore I have, though, so I don't know if that's a common problem with the whole line or not.

Encore's are pretty solid, and as close to the originals as you'll get now (mostly by default, since there is no other ongoing reissue line, but whatever). You do have to watch out for the Metroplexes too, since there seems to be more than a few people who've gotten knockoffs instead of real reissues from legit dealers on accident. I have Jazz, Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker, Hoist, Trailbreaker, Ratchet and Ironhide from the Encore line and want a Metroplex (with fingers crossed that I get a real one, whenever that may be) and have already preordered the Encore cassette sets and two of Bruticus. I admit I'm partial the the TC series because I like the bookstyle format (that was a nice quality about the Hasbro reissues too), but overal Encore's very good.

I have the Encore Ratchet- and some have had differing opinions on him- and i like the quality of him.

he does have one loose part- a tank tread for his base mode, but since i am keeping him MIB, don't bother me one bit.

for the money and availability, Encores are a great alternative to filling up your GeeWun void.

Jonathan Swift

I have all the Encores thus far released save for Omega Supreme, and the quality is fantastic on all of them. No complaints.

Funny - I have none of the Encores thus far released except for Omega Supreme, and he's great. No quality issues there.

Next best thing to the vintage originals.

Let's see....I have:

Megatron
Starscream
Omega Supreme
Ironhide Ratchet
Jass
Minibots
Trailbreaker
Skywarp/Thundercracker

Quality on each is great (exept Megatron, but I haven't opened him yet so I just don't know) and I for one really like the new paint apps.